


feels just like I'm walking on broken glass

by violentdarlings



Series: sex pollen [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 08:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9376706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: Following their sex pollen incident, House and team lose a patient.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Annie Lennox: "Walking On Broken Glass."

The dynamic has been off for weeks.

House flies back from the symposium on a different flight to his team – ostensibly due to a double booking-related mishap but in reality because he’d paid an exorbitant amount of money not to be stuck on a plane with them for five hours. Stuck on a place with Cameron’s impossibly sweet smile, Foreman’s odd demeanour of bewildered satisfaction, and Chase’s even weirder expression of absolutely nothing at all – which contrasts rather sharply to the hickey peeking over the collar of his shirt, which House is quite sure he is responsible for.

There just isn’t a protocol for sleeping with your whole team in an experimental drug fuelled fervour. Not that House is the kind of guy who cares much for policies and procedures at the best of times, but still. It would be nice to have some idea of what direction in which to proceed: pretending nothing has happened, pretending _absolutely_ nothing has happened, or – well. As it goes on from there.

For the first couple of days after it happens Chase can’t meet House’s eyes, Cameron keeps peeking over at him hopefully like she expects him to bring it up over a differential, and Foreman behaves as if nothing has occurred. Good. One out of three isn’t bad, and Wilson isn’t perceptible enough to pick up on any difference. So things go on as they always have. Except sometimes House looks up from his Gameboy to see Chase scribbling away at a crossword or at case notes, his ridiculous hair falling in his eyes, and House’s fingers itch to reach out and stroke it. Or grab Cameron into his arms and kiss her when she gets one up on the boys and walks around looking smug for the rest of the day, or sling his arm around Foreman’s shoulder when he snarks at his colleagues –

It’s a bit like an addiction. House has had a lot of experience with those.

 

They lose a patient. It’s bad.

Towards the end, when it’s obvious they’re fighting a losing battle against both time and the infection ravaging the little girl’s body, Foreman’s eyes get this stony expression and don’t lose it until well after the kid is dead. Cameron is eerily blank, her usual compassion present when she deals with the family but the rest of the time showing next to no emotion. And Chase… Christ. House catches him crying quietly in the empty doctor’s lounge around midnight, after the patient finally passes away in her parents’ arms. It’s awful, to even think it, but, as House considers as he sets a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and says nothing at all, at least Chase is dealing with his grief in a semi-healthy way. The other two, however…

Cuddy had already told them, before she’d left the day before, to take the next day off. The unspoken words ‘unless your patient is still alive’ had hung in the air like darts. House leaves the hospital around two, rides his bike home in the cool darkness, the world so still he can almost believe nothing bad could ever happen. The screams of the child as necrotising fasciitis began to gnaw away at her skin do not ring in his ears. He does not remember a damn thing.

He doesn’t let himself.

He’s home for five minutes before he opens the bottle of scotch. Three burning mouthfuls later, he has enough energy to shower, to change his clothes, to collapse down on his sofa and contemplate turning on the TV. He’s exhausted but his body is vibrating like he’s on amphetamines rather than narcotics, and somewhere not so far away there are nurses gently washing that girl’s tiny, wounded body and tucking her into a body bag, the final sacrament those of a medical inclination can perform for their patients, and not a one of his team there to see it.

Back on the bike.

He doesn’t think, limping up the stairs to Cameron’s apartment, the barely drunk bottle of scotch weighing heavy in his free hand. He raps sharply on the door with the heavy glass bottle, hoping against hope she’s asleep, she’s out, she’s still at the hospital, anything.

Of course, she opens the door.

Her hair is loose and wild, her skin is chalky, and there are dark shadows under her eyes. She looks wrecked. House knows he doesn’t look much better. “What do you want?” she asks hollowly, as though she can’t muster up the energy to put even a fragment of emotion into her words.

“Hell if I know,” House mutters. Something softens in Cameron’s gaze. “Just let me sit down somewhere and get drunk.” Cameron cracks a weary smile.

“Great minds think alike,” she replies, and pushes open the door to let him past. House limps in, and is confronted by the sight of Foreman in an armchair, his head leaning back against the wall and eyes closed, an abandoned glass of something amber by his foot. Not to mention Chase, long and lean, stretched out on the sofa with a beer bottle cradled in his hands and an expression on his face like the world has ended.

“But fools seldom differ,” House retorts, completing the proverb, and drops his cane with a clatter as he sits in the other armchair and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Foreman’s eyes snap open.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks. House sneers.

“Same as you. Commiserating. Dead patient and all that.” Foreman makes a noise that House thinks is meant to be a laugh. It sounds more like a sob.

“Like you care.”

“Do you want a glass?” Cameron asks, hovering at House’s elbow, ever conciliatory. House chuckles briefly, opens his scotch, and tosses down about four standard drinks at once.

“I’m fine,” he says shortly, and focusses on Foreman. “Why do you care if I care?” he asks the other man. “Caring didn’t save that girl’s life.”

“Neither did we,” Chase points out, staring at the ceiling. House sighs.

“We tried,” Cameron protests, but it’s half-hearted at best. She’s on the floor, her back against the wall, her wine glass tucked against her chest.  “Sometimes we get it wrong. It happens.”

“But we shouldn’t have!” Foreman explodes, and House leans back, waits for it to happen. Sometimes it’s irritating, being able to diagram out a conversation, seeing every possible word and phrase that might occur, counter attacks planned down to the finest detail. But sometimes, it comes in handy. “Ever since LA, the way we work – it hasn’t been the same –”

Foreman shuts up, but the damage is done: Cameron is frozen and in danger of spilling her red wine, Chase has bolted upright. “We said we wouldn’t talk about that,” Chase says in a low, tight tone; House has never heard him sound so angry. “We were drugged. It was a mistake.”

House whistles mockingly. It’s a soft, quiet sound, but they all hear it; his team is not stupid, after all, or deaf, for that matter. “Was it?” he asks, playing devil’s advocate now just as he does in a differential, and with no less effect.

“Of course it was!” Chase snaps. “We were exposed to _– whatever the hell it was_ – and slept together. It’s over. Move on. End of story.”

“So it was good sex,” House guesses. “If it was bad sex, then you wouldn’t be acting so fucking repressed about it.”

“It wasn’t bad,” Cameron chips in quietly.

“Shut up, Cameron,” Foreman says, and his voice alone is a warning.

“Don’t shut up, Cameron,” House replies. “Just because you and I are too mature for the gay panic these two have been indulging in over the past four weeks –”

“Gay panic?” Chase bites out, his blue eyes bright. “What about ‘oh shit I fucked my co-workers panic’? That seems a tiny bit more pressing to me, don’t you think?”

“You’ve fucked Cameron before,” House points out, entirely reasonably, he feels.

“ _I_ haven’t,” Foreman says sharply. “And am I the only one who has a problem with the fact that none of us, from a moral and legal standpoint, were able to consent?” House purses his lips.

“So you’ve been acting like you’ve got a pinecone shoved up your ass because you feel like you were taken advantage of?” he muses. Foreman leaps to his feet and looms over him; House blinks, and tilts his scotch back again.

“No,” Foreman growls, leaning forward, jabbing his index finger into just below House’s collarbone to emphasise his point, “I feel like I did the assaulting. For God’s sake. I was further away when I was exposed, I should have been able to resist the effects –”

“Eric,” Cameron says in alarm, getting to her feet, and it must be serious, because she never uses any of their first names. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t your fault.” Foreman lets her sit him back down, but he drops his head into his hands. “You got the same dose as the rest of us,” Cameron continue, her voice soothing, as though Foreman is a disgruntled patient she is trying to settle. She has her hand on his back, rubbing in circles. “Who knows why it took longer to affect you and House. But you didn’t do anything wrong.” She hesitates. “Or anything I wouldn’t have wanted you to do even if I wasn’t on the drug.” Foreman’s head flies up, his expression as close to surprised as it ever gets. “So stop feeling guilty,” Cameron tells him firmly with one last pat to the shoulder, and sits back down, sipping her wine and closing her eyes.

“Chase,” House says. The other man has been suspiciously quiet. “Have you been harbouring similar moronic feelings of guilt?” Chase shrugs, his gaze on the floor. House leans down, picks up his cane, and stretches so he can smack Chase sharply in the leg with it.

“Ow!” Chase says, rubbing his ankle and scowling. “What the hell was that for?”

“Sulking,” House tell him, and Chase’s scowl deepens. “We were discussing Foreman being an idiot,” he continues. “Care to weigh in?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Foreman mutters; House does him the courtesy of pretending he didn’t hear it.

“Come on, Chase,” House continues. “Contribute to the conversation.”

“What Foreman says,” Chase replies. House arches an eyebrow.

“About guilt?”

“No, about you fucking yourself.” House adopts a wounded expression.

“So mean!” he whines. Chase lifts his chin, and something like challenge comes into his face.

“Maybe you should think about why you are so keen to talk about it,” he snaps. House shrugs.

“I’m mature enough to accept the fact we all had drug induced sex,” he replies.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true,” Cameron interjects. As one, all three men stare at her. “Well, it isn’t!” she defends. “If you establish sex as penetrative intercourse only, then really, it was only House and I. The rest of it was just… canoodling.”

“ _Canoodling_?” Chase repeats in a tone that suggests he is horrified.

“It means ‘kissing and cuddling amorously’,” House says helpfully. Chase glares. It’d be intimidating if he weren’t so cute.

“I know what it means, we speak English back in Australia too,” he says hotly. Cameron snorts, and makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like ‘don’t come the raw prawn with me’. Chase hears it too. “We don’t say shit like that!” he snaps, but even Foreman is managing a smile now. “I hate you all,” Chase sulks, and throws himself back down on the sofa.

“No, you don’t,” Cameron says, and her mouth is red with wine and House wants to kiss her.

It occurs to him at this point he might be a little intoxicated, but then he recalls he usually wants to kiss her, so it can’t be that. Perhaps the alcohol is making him just a smidgen more open about it that usual –

“Stop staring at Cameron like you want to eat her,” Foreman says, and House blinks.

“Am not,” he says at once. Cameron giggles, and it’s edged with hysteria, like she could go either way: tears that last for hours or maniacal laugher that is just as hard to shake.

House considers that as fuzzy as his world is at the moment, the three of them may have had rather more to drink than he has. Cameron’s bottle of wine is looking rather empty, and Foreman is talking about his feelings, which never happens, and Chase… well, Chase is Australian. He probably doesn’t even get drunk. It probably bypasses his blood entirely and gets exuded out his pores.

“I wish we could do it again,” Cameron says softly. House cracks open an eyelid, unsure when his eyes slipped closed in the first place. But then again, none of them have slept in nearly two days and they’re all semi-inebriated.

“What?” Chase asks fuzzily. Cameron is blushing furiously.

“What happened in LA,” she replies. “I know, I know, none of you are gay. And we were drugged. But it was… hot.”

House preens. “Of course it was,” he agrees. “I was involved.” Foreman groans, and Chase throws a forearm over his eyes to block out the light, and House can almost pretend it’s true, that he’s not a shadow of the man he used to be. That once a foursome with three attractive people, even if two of them are dudes, wouldn’t be as big a deal as it was. That once maybe, just maybe, these three ridiculously gorgeous young things would have been something he could have.

 

Daylight pours through the open window, and House flinches away from it instinctively. He’s lying on Cameron’s bed, fully clothed on top of the blankets. He vaguely remembers an argument about sleeping arrangements – Cameron had told him to stop being an idiot and just lie down, that his leg couldn’t take a night on the floor, and it had seemed eminently sensible advice at the time. Chase had already passed out on the sofa, Foreman was snoring in the armchair with his feet up, and Cameron – God knows where she is.

Oh. There she is.

She’s curled up beside him, still in her clothes like a kid passed out in the corner at a party, her pale face smoothed in sleep. Her bed is big enough – and her body small enough – that she’s a full arm’s length away, too far to jostle his leg, although if he stretched he might be able to brush his fingers over her hair.

Infinitely preferable was waking up in a tangle of limbs, Chase and Cameron almost as close as House’s own skin, Foreman a little further but still within reach.

He rolls out of the bed, ignoring the shriek of pain from his leg, and limps out to the kitchen. He regards the rest of his team while he sips a glass of water; Chase, his shirt unbuttoned at the sleeves and throat, stretched out on the sofa and drooling slightly, and Foreman, flat on the floor with one of Cameron’s decorative pillows tucked under his head. Evidently the armchair was not a comfortable option after all.

He has three choices; to leave while they’re all still asleep, or to stay, and either wake them or let them sleep.

In the end, he doesn’t leave.


End file.
